Thu. 8/9/12 7:07pm
Troll:
COFFEE is terrible!! And TOMATOES!! Why can't we be destroying those instead of coca plants!

Thu. 8/9/12 7:07pm
cool fool:
I'm pretty sure I heard my flatmate use her vibrator. not sure what other sound that could be....

Thu. 8/9/12 7:09pm
JJJ:
20K walk is my fav, they do this daft little fast walk its great

Thu. 8/9/12 7:09pm
Dan B From Upstate:
Seriously, though, what a strange way to use one's time. Spend an entire hour listening to radio show that you don't like just so that you can bitch about it? I mean... there are alternate streams, there are over ten years of archives... There are other radio stations... Hell... read a book! But to sit around and waste an hour of your life doing something you hate when you could be doing something you enjoy? I just don't get it.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:14pm
Cocktails:
There are as many stories behind the origin of the name Cocktail as there are behind the creation of the Margarita or the Martini. As always, some are preposterous, some believable and who knows, one may be the truth. None the less, the stories are interesting.

A popular story behind the Cocktail name refers to a rooster's tail (or cock tail) being used as a Colonial drink garnish. There are no formal references in recipe to such a garnish.
In the story in The Spy (James Fenimore Cooper, 1821) the character "Betty Flanagan" invented the Cocktail during the Revolution. "Betty" may have referred to a real-life innkeeper at Four Corners north of New York City by the name of Catherine "Kitty" Hustler. Betty took on another non-fiction face, that of Betsy Flanagan. Betsy likely not a real woman though, but the story says she was a tavern keeper who served French soldiers in 1779 a drink garnished with tail feathers of her neighbor's rooster. We can assume that Kitty inspired Betty and Betty inspired Betsy, but whether or not one of the three are responsible for the Cocktail is a mystery.
The rooster theory is also said to have been influenced by the colors of the mixed ingredients, which may resemble the colors of the cock's tail. This would be a good tale today given our colorful array of ingredients, but at the time spirits were visually bland.
The British publication, Bartender, published a story in 1936 of English sailors, of decades before, being served mixed drinks in Mexico. The drinks were stirred with a Cola de Gallo (Cock's tail), a long root of similar shape to the bird's tail.
Another Cocktail story refers to the leftovers of a cask of ale, called cock tailings. The cock tailings from various spirits would be mixed together and sold at a lower priced mixed beverage of questionable integrity.
Yet another unappetizing origin tells of a cock ale, a mash of ale mixed with whatever was available to be fed to fighting cocks.
Cocktail may have derived from the French term for egg cup, coquetel. One story that brought this reference to America speaks of Antoine Amedie Peychaud of New Orleans who mixed his Peychaud bitters into a stomach remedy served in a coquetel. Not all of Peychaud's customers could pronounce the word and it became known as Cocktail. This story doesn't add up because of conflicting dates.
The word Cocktail may be a distant derivation of the name for the Aztec goddess, Xochitl. Xochitl was also the name of a Mexican princess who served drinks to American soldiers.
It was an 18th and 19th century custom to dock draft horses' tales. This caused the tales to stick up like a cocks tail. As the story goes, a reader's letter to the balance explains that when drunk these Cocktails made you cock your tail up in the same manner.
Another horse tail supposes the influence of breeders term for a mix breed horse, or cock-tails. Both racing and drinking were popular among the majority of Americans at the time and it's possible the term transferred from mixed breeds to mixed drinks.
There's a quirky story of an American tavern keeper who stored alcohol in a ceramic, rooster-shaped container. When patrons wanted another round they tapped the rooster's tail.
In George Bishop's The Booze Reader: A Soggy Saga of Man in His Cups (1965) he says, "The word itself stems from the English cock-tail which, in the middle 1800's, referred to a woman of easy virtue who was desirable but impure…and applied to the newly acquired American habit of bastardizing good British Gin with foreign matter, including ice."

Thu. 8/9/12 7:14pm
Caryn:
Should I correct that it's Gulden Draak, not Guldendrach? As it's connected with my beloved Ghent, I feel a need to speak up. Or type up.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:15pm
JJJ:
Taekwondo Pole Vault

Thu. 8/9/12 7:19pm
dale:
prarie oysters are bulls testicles

Thu. 8/9/12 7:20pm
Zach:
I'm going to call back in later and talk about dragons.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:20pm
Danne D:
rocky mountain oyster is the one with the testicles i think

Thu. 8/9/12 7:21pm
Danne D:
is there a cocktail that includes dragon testicles?

Thu. 8/9/12 7:21pm
JJJ:
They have a beefy arm

Thu. 8/9/12 7:22pm
Danne D:
Synchronized javelin would be good if they did it from across the field from each other

Thu. 8/9/12 7:22pm
Cocktails:
The first published definition of the Cocktail appeared in an editorial response in The Balance and Columbian Repository of 1806. This read: "Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters." It is this definition of ingredients that still refers to the "ideal cocktail

Thu. 8/9/12 7:22pm
Caryn:
The dragon in Dragonheart was called Draco. And why the hell do I remember this?

Thu. 8/9/12 7:26pm
Cliff:
I thought the modern Olympics started in 1896?

Thu. 8/9/12 7:29pm
Caryn:
@Cliff: correct, 1896. Of course, they were inspired not only by the ancient Olympics, but by the Olympian Games (held under various names since 1850) and the Greek-Ottoman Olympic Games (held since 1859).

Thu. 8/9/12 7:34pm
Danne D:
The life expectancy they typically report in the media is from birth.

There's a whole subject of actuarial science called life contingencies that deals with life expectancy - it does change based on how long you have already lived as well as your health condition and other factors.

If you're already like 80 years old, your life expectancy actually is like 7-10 years I think.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:35pm
Danne D:
"All the right moves" = being female with a pulse

Thu. 8/9/12 7:35pm
Caryn:
It is thought that good aging is often linked to genetics. There have been studies e.g. of Sephardic Jewish communities in NY that show that members of the community lived very long and healthy lives due to genetics, not lifestyle or diet.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:35pm
Zach:
I liked the scripted episode.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:35pm
Cocktails:
Cock-tail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:40pm
Cliff:
When I was going to Cornell, for a couple years I lived in the house on State St. that "Puff the Magic Dragon" was supposedly written in.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:43pm
Zach:
Don't knock podcasts Dave. I would never have heard of you guys if it wasn't for the podcast.

Thu. 8/9/12 7:47pm
yoga4dogs:
hey dave or sandy, i know the answer is probably no, but are all of the michael deforge knight people shirts gone?